Random musings on whatever subject strikes my fancy that day.

“Digital Rights Management” is one of those things that sounds so benign. Like “Patriot Act”. In fact, DRM is a willful effort to make sure that your computer is not really your property, and that legitimate uses of it are under control of the corporations you bought media from. Oh, sorry, “bought media” is a misstatement. Under DRM, you cannot actually buy media. You can give corporations money, yes, but they retain the ownership of everything. You have only bought a license to use the media until… well… until they decide you can’t use it anymore. When this day arrives, you will have no recourse.

Security? Broken software is not secure. Proprietary encryption algorithms make me pull my hair out. DRM requires that you hold all the information in your hands and yet you are subject to arbitrary restrictions about how it may be used. The theme of all DRM is, or should be, “Defective by Design.” Because the only way to make DRM start to work is to break your software or device in some way, and then arbitrarily forbid you from fixing them.

Why the sudden DRM screed today? May 6th is the International Day against DRM and this has been welling up for some time.